Wednesday, April 28, 2010

A guest post from my Dad who feels strongly feels that Britain has been too ready to accept Gordon Brown's excuses for the recession and the deficit crisis. He wrote this piece before Brown was overheard venting his ire at a (Labour) voter this morning after being all smiles to her face. But is there a connection between the two - is this a man who always has to find someone to blame? Here's the post. I agree with every word. And don't think his opinions are based on Tory bias - after a life in business his politics veer to the right but he has never been a Conservative party member or particularly vocal about politics in his life. he just feels frustrated, like I do, that Brown always seems to escape the blame for his ruinous decisions. If anyone wants to publish a defence of GB I will publish it of course.

Wake up Great Britain !

Gordon Brown has, almost single handedly , created the conditions that took the UK into a far, farworse recession than most other countries and certainly made the recession far deeper in the UK than it should ever have been.

Why did he do this ?

To make sure, as far as he was able, that he and the Labour Party were re-elected to government in the last two general elections.

How did he do this ?

He increased taxes massively, by stealth, expecting the majority of voters not to notice the seriousness of these increases, particularly the increase in taxes on pensions, which will not affect many voters for several years to come. He also allowed local councils to increase the council tax considerably in excess of inflation for many years in succession.

These measures enabled him to increase public sector expenditure, increase the number of public sector employees and increase public sector employee’s remuneration at far higher rates than inflation and at that which would have been prudent.

Result : many very happy voters in the public sector and it’s contractors and suppliers.

He allowed money supply to run out of control, at the same time he kept interest rates too low.

( EG. Interest rates after 40% tax were well below the rate of inflation, much of the time below the rates of inflation for standard rate tax payers too. ) Inflation was allowed to continue at well above the 2% per annum he set as the maximum that was sustainable. House prices soared, giving owner occupiers the ‘feel good’ factor of unexpected wealth and large sums of free equity in their properties. Freely available loans meant many owners borrowed against this free equity to buy their 4 x 4’s, larger cars, luxury cars, yachts and motor cruisers, as well their ‘dream holiday apartments’ in Spain etc.

Result : many more very happy voters.

Local authorities and banks, looking for better returns than the meagre interest rates available in the UK, looked to Iceland for better interest rates and the USA to buy ‘packages’ of loans and mortgages at higher rates of return. (Well, so they thought ).

Banks in the UK, with the seemingly unending supply of money that was available, made irresponsible loans to house buyers and the ‘buy to let’ brigade, fuelling the runaway and booming housing market.

This resulted in the feel good factor spreading to many more voters. That was until the bubble burst and many people’s lives collapsed around them. But that came after the last general election.

Gordon Brown mismanaged the UK economy in such a gigantic way, on such a scale as has never before happened.

When everything came tumbling down around him, he, cleverly, has blamed the world recession and all of the banks for their mismanagement.

Nothing was ever the fault of Gordon Brown. Was it Gordon Brown ( with George Bush ) and his policies that caused the world recession and the global banking crisis ?

Now Gordon Brown has borrowed more money ( from where has it all come ? ) than this country has ever contemplated doing since the second world war. He is still borrowing at an enormous rate and has no intention of stopping this for many years to come, only halving the rate of borrowing after four more years of racking up massive debts for the nation.

Interest rates for investors, including pensioners in particular, are abysmal, even non taxpayers are now seeing a return on investments that are a fraction of the rate of inflation. ( My granddaughter’s small investment account paid £12.81 interest two years ago, £8.68 last year and £0.44 last week, with more money in the account each year ). However, the cheap mortgages are a boon to many borrowers, who must think Gordon Brown is a marvel, for whom they must vote again !

These are just a few of Mr Brown’s disasters. He is still giving millions away to overseas ‘ causes ‘.

Pensioners of the UK are the biggest ‘silent’ losers in Mr Brown’s debacle.

He has caused greater debts for the country than all the banks put together.

So why has not Mr Brown resigned over the catastrophe he has caused for our country ?

It is time Britain woke up and realised the horrendous damage Gordon Brown has done to the country.

After this election, I believe any incoming new government will find a far worse financial situation than has been made public to date.

However if Mr Brown can succeed in pulling the wool over the electorate’s eyes for a few more days, and passing the buck to the banks and the rest of the world, it might be him who has to admit to the country, the extremely serious situation he has got us into.